Reference is made to commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/035,606 filed Mar. 5, 1998, entitled xe2x80x9cForming Images on Receivers Having Field-Driven Particlesxe2x80x9d and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/012,842 filed Jan. 23, 1998, entitled xe2x80x9cAddressing Non-Emissive Color Display Devicexe2x80x9d. The disclosure of these related applications is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to an insertable cartridge having receivers with field-driven particles.
There are several types of electric field-driven particles in the field of non-emissive displays. One class is the so-called electrophoretic particle that is based on the principle of movement of charged particles in an electric field. In an electrophoretic receiver, the charged particles containing different reflective optical densities can be moved by an electric field to or away from the viewing side of the receiver, which produces a contrast in the optical density. Another class of electric field-driven particles are particles carrying an electric dipole. Each pole of the particle is associated with a different optical densities (bi-chromatic). The electric dipole can be aligned by a pair of electrodes in two directions, which orient each of the two polar surfaces to the viewing direction. The different optical densities on the two halves of the particles thus produces a contrast in the optical densities.
To produce a high quality image it is essential to form a plurality of image pixels by varying the electric field on a pixel wise basis. The electric fields can be produced by a plurality pairs of electrodes embodied in the receiver as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,612,758.
It is known in the prior art to provide an electronic camera which uses an area image sensor. Digital images produced from the image sensor are stored in memory and these images can be shown on a display so that the user can determine which image should be stored for use in producing hard copy images. Typically, these images can be stored in a magnetic disk or a compact PCMCIA Flash RAM Card or in dedicated memory within the camera.
A shortcoming with prior electronic cameras is that data must be transmitted from the electronic camera to printer. Interfaces must be present to transfer the data. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. No. 5,032,911, printers that write to light sensitive media print must have means within the printer that operate on received data and convert the data into modulated light to mark the photosensitive sheet. Many newer electronic cameras incorporate light emitting displays to view a captured image. However, the apparatus for producing such images is not available for light writing onto photosensitive media.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an insertable cartridge for having receivers with field-driven particles which can be used in a receiving structure for printing images on such receivers.
This object is achieved by an insertable cartridge for insertion into a receiving structure having electronic addressing means for forming a visual image of a stored image comprising:
a) a housing for receiving a plurality of receivers, each receiver including field-driven particles in a matrix that can change reflective density in response to an applied electric field which intersect at positions corresponding to pixels;
b) the housing defining alignment features for insertion into the receiving structure which receives and positions an inserted cartridge; and
c) the housing including electronic interconnecting means for connection between the addressing means and a receiver after a cartridge has been inserted in the receiving structure for permitting the application of voltages at the pixel positions across the field-driven particles at particular locations in the receiver corresponding to pixels in the stored image to produce an image in the receiver in the cartridge.
A feature of this invention is that an insertable cartridge having a plurality of receivers with field-driven particles and that images can be formed in the cartridge on the top receiver.
Another feature of the invention is that the cartridge housing can be provided with electrical interconnection which, when the cartridge is inserted into a receiving structure such as a printer or a camera, are interconnected with addressing means for addressing pixel positions on the top receiver.